Hot 100 2015 - Drinks

Bar Exuberante, Melbourne

The world is getting hotter and we’re not talking about global warming. From food to faraway destinations, artistic accomplishment to technological triumph, our trend-hunters have combed the planet for what to eat, see, do and watch – right now. Here are the drinking trends to watch for this year.

YOU'VE GOT AIRMAIL
Melbourne's Bar Exuberante is bringing penpalling back in vogue
with the Airmail cocktail: Angostura 1919 rum, lemon juice, artisan
Melbourne rooftop honey and vintage Champagne, garnished with a
letter from one of the world's leading bars. The correspondents
include Artesian in London, New York's Attaboy, Die Goldene Bar in
Munich and Hamburg's Le Lion. "You also get to send a letter back,"
says Bar Exuberante owner Matt Bax, "all included in the price of
the cocktail." Bar Exuberante, 438 Church St, Richmond, Vic, (03)
9428 0055

WHITE RIOT
Suddenly, discussions about milk have moved beyond the coffee
literate and obsessed (breed of cow/type of feed/should you even be
polluting coffee with milk at all?) and the wellness-paleo crowd
(soy vs almond vs rice vs coconut). Thanks to the recent raw-milk
debate, the continued campaign for the emancipation of raw-milk
cheese, the countrywide discussion about whether it's ethical and
sustainable to sell milk at a dollar a litre, the sudden
proliferation of independent dairy companies and the appearance of
an inner-city micro-dairy (St David Dairy in Fitzroy), milk is
firmly on an increasing number of agendas.

NEW BREWS
Chef-restaurateur Joseph Abboud (Rumi, The Moor's Head, Moor Please) has added
another profession to his CV: brewer. Hawkers Beer, his
1,400-square-metre brewery in Melbourne's north, is a collaboration
with Lebanese craft-beer guru (and now Australian resident) Mazen
Hajjar, and their first beer, a pale ale, nabbed a people's choice
award within hours of being made. Coming soon: a saison, an India
red ale for the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular, a
"collaboration" brew with the guys at Evil Twin, Baird Beer, Edge
and Kaiju, and a bar. Hawkers Beer, 167 Henty St, Reservoir, Vic,
(03) 9462 0650

PLAYING THE FIELD
The old-fashioned winemaking practice of "field blending" -
growing, harvesting and fermenting lots of different varieties of
red and white grapes together to create one wine - is making a
comeback in Australian vineyards. Look out for field blends from
the likes of Cape Jaffa, Between Five Bells and Margan.

HAPPINESS REMEMBERED
Ali Burgess decided against a speakeasy-by-numbers or
faux-Brooklyn vibes for his new London basement cocktail den,
Original Sin, keeping it classic, with wood and brick, deep-red
leather seating for 45, and 18 counter-long stools. Unlike
Happiness Forgets, his much-loved bar in Hoxton, it has standing
room and a pool table. Tap up the all-girl team for their house
twist on the Manhattan, the San Sebastián: rye and amontillado
laced with maple syrup and bitters. Original Sin, 129 Stoke Newington High St,
London.

'TIS THE SEASON
One of the most exciting - and delicious - developments in
Australian craft brewing is the move away from an obsession with
hops towards a focus on special strains of yeast. The classic
perfumed, rich yeasty beer style is called saison, and no one does
saison better than Melbourne's La Sirène brewery.

A PALER SHADE
We predict this could be the year the trend for "orange" wines
begins to wane. Not because there won't be more winemakers willing
to ferment their white wines on skins, but because the 2014 Cullen Amber Margaret River sémillon and
sauvignon - that spends up to a month on skins - is so
phenomenally good that everyone else might as well stop
trying.

CELLAR DOOR FOR GROWN-UPS
After seeing how well the concept works in smart wine regions
overseas, Crittenden Wines on
Victoria's Mornington Peninsula has said goodbye to the casual
tasting-counter cellar door experience, and is now offering
visitors a much more civilised, sit-down tutored tasting. The
reaction has been very positive - expect to see more wineries
heading down this route.

BIG BOY ACTION
Despite an aversion to big-company wines among many somms, indie
retailers and wine geeks, the fact is the big companies own some of
the best vineyards and employ some of the best winemaking talent in
the country. The revamped, retro-look single-vineyard shirazes from
Mount Pleasant (owned by McWilliam's) and the Seppelt St Peters
shiraz (Treasury Wine Estate) are simply some of the best bottles
we've tasted over the past 12 months.

BASKET CASES
The wild and woolly Adelaide Hills enclave known as Basket Range
is groaning with winemaking talent right now. A number of
adventurous producers shaking up South Australia's wine scene -
Anton von Klopper of Lucy Margaux, James Erskine of Jauma and Tom
Shobbrook of Shobbrook Wines - have made this rolling country home,
and there are exciting wines coming from the region from the likes
of Gentle Folk, Murdoch Hill, The Other Right and Ochota
Barrels.

GOON SHOW
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Tom Angove first filling a
plastic bladder with wine and stuffing it in a cardboard cask,
there's a push to take cask wine upmarket(ish) in smart two-litre
packs. Look for good pinot grigio and tempranillo from The
Winesmiths, and Brown Brothers' moscato in a cunningly disguised
"handbag" cask.

HIGH SPIRITS
The booming Australian craft-distilling scene takes an even more
exciting turn with the introduction of great new spirits such as
Grosset 45 (distilled riesling - kind of like
grappa-meets-eau-de-vie ), a fine brandy (sorry, "handcrafted aged
grape spirit") called Ochre from the Mornington Peninsula, and
Noble Cut Gin from Young Henrys brewery in Sydney.

STIRRING STUFF
Bitters - both the flavouring agents and herbal liqueurs - have
been cocktail-kind's big movers of late, but no bar celebrates
their pungent deliciousness quite like New York's Amor y Amargo on 443 East 6th St. Sother
Teague's matchbox of a "Bitters Tasting Room" is so fixated on the
punchy, the herbal and - yes - the bitter, he and his fellow
bartenders have ditched shaken drinks and citrus to ensure their
bar's namesake is the hero.

Each fortnight we round up the most interesting characters from the food world for your listening pleasure. We chat to chefs, cooks, authors, bar tenders and baristas - anyone who has something new and interesting to say about the way we like to eat and drink.